Elizabeth Wurtzel's Cake Panel

You know, I think whatever it is you can do. All these companies screwed up. The Washington Post could have had a 10% stake in Facebook when Facebook was a long time ago, I can't remember what went wrong with that, they had a handshake deal between Don Graham and Mark Zuckerberg, and Don let it go.

I think there's this term "platform" that is really kind of this bullshit thing. It's gotta stop. I mean Facebook has to start realizing it's a publisher. I suppose Uber needs to realize it's not a platform, it's responsible. A "platform" sort of says "we're not responsible." There's a case that everybody does in law school, it's an old West case, and there's a wall, and there's not much that the people who have the wall can do about the stupid signs people post on the wall. They can take the signs down, but if the people put the signs up, what can you do? You can only do so much. You can keep taking the signs down. But that's it. We're just a wall. And that's sort of the idea of a platform. It's the old West. We're just a kiosk. People post signs on the kiosk, and sometimes the signs say "WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE" and it's the wrong man that they want.

You can take the sign down, you can put another sign on top of it, but we're not responsible for whatever.

And I think it's just bullshit.

This Facebook platform is really benefitting from being a platform. They have to start realizing they have skin in the game.

So I think that's kind of the thing about the internet. It's all these websites that have a million ways of saying "it's not our problem." And it's really amazing - I noticed the Washington Post has that famous "in/out" list. "In" this year is "Delete Instagram." "Out" is "Delete Facebook." Either way, the in thing to do is to delete a social media account owned by the same company. I read the Times on the app every day, and yesterday there were two different articles about what your life was like if you just got rid of your Facebook account. It's like a slow thing. I think people like Instagram, but I think people less and less like Facebook. Having a Facebook account is a default kind of thing.

They could go the way of Friendster. It could happen. The whole thing could fall apart. Who knows?

I think that really - I've subscribed to the NY Times and it's the best way to get the news and everybody should do that. And I like getting the New Yorker in print. There are things that are just better to read that way. I think it's difficult.

Apparently people still like books. I still buy CDs. I like listening to music on a good stereo. I still buy vinyl. I think I'm supporting the headphone industry really well also, as I buy great headphones and then lose them.

Popup shops, pop culture, the Museum of Selfies (yes, it’s a real place). What jumps out at you as we start to wind down the 2010’s? (Besides people’s obsession with 2020 as a year and symbolic benchmark)

A lot of the 2010's was Barack Obama's presidency, which was very meaningful. But it's been discovering the underbelly of sexism, racism, but also of activism. And of people asking "can I kick it? Yes you can." As I have written on my wall.

I went to Montgomery, Alabama, and it was such a positive experience, because people there are right in the midst of - well, there's a statue of Jefferson Davis right next to where Martin Luther King had his church. That's a place that was majority slaves at one point, a big slave trade place. But they have a lynching memorial there now. And in Montgomery, you have two of the biggest civil rights organizations based there. They're where the pain is. And Alabama elected a Democratic senator this year, because they couldn't elect Roy Moore, even though Donald Trump went down there and campaigned for them. Anywhere you go that there's cities, they're liberal. And I think that's the thing that makes me really hopeful. Cities, anywhere, are liberal. Urban people are amazing. I would go sit in this coffee place in Montgomery, and talk to people, and they were just like "We have one Democratic Senator, and we're going to have two."

They believed that. They believed in a better future for Alabama. And that was really something. It really made me hopeful.

I was in Italy recently, but I don't think I enjoyed Rome as much as I enjoyed Montgomery, because going to Montgomery really made me feel positive about this country.

There are amazing people everywhere. There are people who are excited about life everywhere, including in Montgomery.

So I would say that this decade has been the worst of us and the best of us.

We're at the crossroads between Love and Hate. It's like the guy with the knuckle tattoos of "hate" and "love." Hate is coming out there, it's pushing really hard, it looks like it's doing well, hate has tough stuff. It's unbelievable that people are excited about building a wall. Imagine. Ridiculous.

But then look at this, there goes Love.

The most amazing thing is not that Secretariat won at the Belmont by 31 lengths. It's that Secretariat won at the Kentucky Derby from behind. I think the idea is not to look behind. It doesn't matter what is going on behind you. Don't look down, don't look back.

Steve Prefontaine was an amazing runner. That saying is attributed to him. He was badly affected by the 1972 Olympics. There's a wonderful documentary about it, called "One Day in September." It's on Amazon Prime.

I think more of the same. You know, I feel like I've mostly spoken to my mother. And there are so many people to talk to. There are people who knew my father. His best friend was Roy Lichtenstein. There are all these wonderful Civil Rights photos he took.

So he took all these great photos. He knew the art world. There are all these art world people I need to speak to. And some Civil Rights people I need to speak to. And I need to talk to people about my father who wasn't actually my father.

I have this whole new family. And there's stuff to say about cancer. There's stuff to say about marriage (because I got married, and I hope I'll still be married, but it's difficult to be married). And there's a lot to say about how challenging it is to be alive. A lot of the things that have happened to me with all of this, I feel like this seems like an extraordinary story, but I don't feel like it's more challenging than a lot of people's lives. I do think it's difficult to be alive. I don't think the things I deal with are so much more difficult than what other people deal with who have things going on. We're just trying to get through the day. Some people might find that equally challenging.

I don't think it takes much to get overwhelmed. All this stuff, I've managed, and it's been a whole new layer of complicated now that I just have to make coffee in the morning.

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